Indoor Monstera Plant

LushLeaf

My Monstera has decided to cosplay as an octopus and is sending aerial roots on a house tour. One is sniffing the bookshelf, another is making a slow-motion jail break toward the humidifier, and a third is negotiating with the power outlet. The moss pole is basically a decorative stick at this point because anything I put on it dries faster than my patience.

So I’m considering building the plant what I’m calling an “aerial root bar” - a separate vertical water/LECA column strapped to the pole that the aerial roots can plug into, while the main pot stays in a chunky mix I water normally. In other words: dual plumbing. Let the terrestrial roots be soil people and the sky-tentacles be hydro people. Has anyone here actually tried this?

Details I’m toying with:

Column: tall, narrow clear vase or PVC with holes, filled with LECA or pon, wicking from a small reservoir; maybe an airstone at the bottom if we’re getting fancy.
Nutrients: very light hydro solution in the column (something like 0.5-0.8 EC) vs just water; rainwater vs tap to avoid crusty “hard water frosting.”
Oxygen: keep the column airy enough to avoid marsh vibes; top mulched with dry LECA to deter gnats.
Attachments: gently guiding aerial roots into the column without snapping them - anyone tried wrapping with moist sphagnum “sleeves” to coax them in? Do you tip-prune the velamen to encourage branching, or is that a fast track to rot and regret?
Environment: East window, supplemental light to ₁₂-15 DLI (think 300-400 PPFD for 12 hours), humidity 50-60%, temps ₂₂-24°C. I can log substrate moisture in the main pot to see if the plant “gets lazy” and ignores its real roots.

Questions for the collective brain trust:
1) Did a separate aerial-root hydration system actually bulk up the plant - thicker stems, tighter internodes, bigger leaves, more fenestrations - or did it just make a very hydrated vine that refuses to climb?
2) Any weird side effects? Edema, nutrient imbalances in the main pot, salt creep on petioles, root rot where the aerial root enters the medium?
3) If you ran nutrients in the column, what pH/EC worked? Did you match it to your soil feed or treat it as a separate, lighter stream?
4) Better medium for the column: LECA, pon, long-fiber sphagnum, or a layered combo? Bonus points if you’ve tried a capillary wick up a moss pole fed from a reservoir.
5) Did this setup encourage the plant to actually adhere and climb, or does hydration ≠ motivation for Monstera?
6) Any data: before/after leaf size, internode length changes, time-to-fenestration, or even “my plant stopped trying to pick the lock on my cabinet” anecdotes?

I’m not trying to turn it into a hydroponic kraken; I just want my epiphyte to act like an epiphyte without me becoming a full-time misting butler. If you’ve pulled off aerial-root dual-circuit watering - or crashed and burned spectacularly - please spill the chlorophyll.

succulentscribe

Oh man, your Monstera sounds like it’s plotting world domination one root at a time-love the octopus vibe. I jury-rigged a similar “aerial spa” for mine last year: PVC tube with LECA, wicking from a reservoir, strapped to the moss pole. Used pon on top for that airy top layer to keep gnats from crashing the party.

1) It did bulk things up-bigger leaves and more fenestrations after 3 months, but only because I upped the light to match. Without it, yeah, just a floppy, over-hydrated mess.

2) Minor edema on new growth if I slacked on airflow, but no rot if you guide roots in with damp sphagnum sleeves (don’t prune the tips-velamen hates that drama). Salt creep? Only if your tap water’s a mineral mine; I stuck to RO and a 0.4 EC Dyna-Gro lite mix.

3) pH 5.8-6.2, EC 0.5-0.7, lighter than my soil feed (which is 1.0 EC every other watering). Treated it separate to avoid nute wars.

4) LECA all the way for the column-holds oxygen like a champ, less rot risk than sphagnum. Layered pon underneath if you want faster wicking. Capillary moss pole? Tried it, but it turned into a soggy disaster without constant trimming.

5) Hydration helped climbing a bit, but motivation came from pinching vines and better trellis grip-not the water alone.

6) Leaves went from 6″ to 10″ spans, internodes tightened by half, fenestrations popped in 8 weeks vs. my usual 4 months. No cabinet lock-picking, but it did eye my coffee mug suspiciously.

Pro tip: Monitor that main pot moisture religiously; mine got lazy and started ignoring soil roots entirely. Yours might turn into a hydro snob. Good luck not becoming the butler!